This chapter is a continuation from the final section of the previous chapter. I almost didn't post it because after I wrote it I decided it didn't really add anything meaningful to the story. I decided to include it because I always like to read interaction between Trip and T'Pol and I didn't have another chapter ready to post.

Chapter 12: Flight of the interstellar butterfly

Eventually T'Pol had looked at Trip, almost falling asleep at a table in the mess hall, and suggested he to come to her room for neuro-pressure.

He'd mustered a smile and waggled his eyebrows at her as they entered her quarters 'Neuro-pressure, huh?' he asked suggestively, "and what do you mean by 'neuro-pressure?"

T'Pol sighed the long suffering sigh which was birthright of women all over the galaxy. "I mean the Vulcan practice of stimulating neural nodes and pressure points in the body to prompt healing and relaxation." she responded as they each removed their shoes.

"You know, you don't have to use artifice if you want to entice me to your room. I'm a very straight forward kind of a guy." He teased her as he started stripping down to his skivvies, kicking his uniform under the bed when he was done.

T'Pol, true to her nature, did not rise to the bait. "Vulcan's do not use artifice, Commander Tucker. We say exactly what we mean." She divested herself of her own uniform and placed it in the laundry, then did the same with his after retrieving it from under the bunk.

"Well ain't that the truth." He laughed.

He sat on edge of her bed and looked up at her "Honestly, T'Pol, I'm so tired I don't think I'd stay awake for more than ten seconds of neuro-pressure. Do you think maybe, we could just go to bed?" He asked shyly. "I mean... to sleep... you know... next to each other for a couple hours. I know it's been less than a week since the whole Azati Prime thing, but it feels like a month and I've just missed holding you."

T'Pol didn't miss a beat. She moved across the room, crawled into his lap and kissed him. "I'll take that as a yes." He said as he shifted them to a laying position and they both wriggled under the sheets.

They each settled into their favoured position. Trip on his back. T'Pol, next to the wall, pressed against his side with her head on his chest. He smiled to himself when T'Pol suddenly shifted with annoyance and worked off his tank top then took off her own so they could rest skin to skin.

Despite his assertion that sleep would come quickly, he found himself unable to let go of the strange events of the day and he could tell T'Pol was not asleep either. After a couple of minutes he decided to ask the question that had been on his mind for most of the day.

"T'Pol, why won't you tell me how old you are?"

"Certain information is considered... intimate to Vulcans." She replied.

He narrowed his eyebrows in disbelief. "More intimate than this?

Had she been human she probably would have laughed. "No, if I believed it really mattered to you, I would tell you. But I have come to the conclusion that you derive a certain amount of amusement from trying to convince me to tell you, perhaps in the manner of a game. I continue to refrain from telling you in order not to terminate your enjoyment of said game.

He gave a silent chuckle at her description when he realised that was she was doing, most illogically of course, was engaging in banter with him. "So are you going to tell me how old you are?" He asked

"Yes."

Trip waited for a pause "um, so how old are you then."

"I did not say I was going to tell you now."

He laughed with the realisation that she'd just gotten him good. "Perhaps I should have asked old you."

"I imagine 'old me' would have been less likely to tell you. It is my understanding that as a women ages she becomes more evasive about revelling her age."

The talk about the other T'Pol got Trip thinking. "So how does it feel to know that there was another version of you, with all your memories, 117 years older, out here living in the expanse for your whole life?"

"If I felt anything, I imagine it would not be materially different to what you felt upon learning a clone of you had been created that shared all your memories."

"Good point."

"As it turns out, she did not have all my memories from prior to being cast back in time, and vice versa."

"What, in what way?"

"As we talked, it became clear that our respective lives took significantly divergent paths about three months go." She told him. "It is possible that, prior to that, there were more differences, that were minor in nature, but a key event in my timeline seems to be your discovery of me accessing the trellium in cargo bay two. In the alternative timeline, T'Pol continued exposing herself to the compound until the events at Azati Prime, by which time she had developed an addiction and caused significant permanent damage to her neural pathways. When the Captan said he had had an 'emotional reunion' with the alternative T'Pol he was not being facetious, as I assumed. Alternative T'Pol had lost some of her ability to suppress her emotions. As as result of this and her years among humans, she was much more expressive than a typical Vulcan

"Wow... just... wow." Trip thought back to that day three months ago and wondered what had precipitated his decision to go to the cargo bay. Even if he could remember the details so it was impossible for him to identify what might have been different. Perhaps it wasn't even his behaviour that was altered, maybe it was T'Pol's. "Did the two of you have any theories about why there may be differences."

"We theorised it was a function of deterministic chaos precipitated by the alternative Enterprise being cast back in time."

Trip nodded. "The Butterfly Effect. So you're suggesting that the alternative Enterprise going back in time represented a change to an initial condition?"

"Not the Enterprise per se, but some factor of the Enterprise's presence in the Expanse 117 years earlier produced a changed initial condition that cascaded to a larger scale alteration. At some point that alteration affected the Enterprise in our timeline and ultimately resulted in changed behaviour of the people on it."

"Were you and alternative T'Pol able to identify any other differences between the two Enterprises?"

"We did not have a lot of time for a detailed analysis of the divergence, but a basic analysis of factors we were aware of identified the most significant changes as being: that in the alternative time the Captain went ahead with the plan to steal the warp coil from the Illyrians; and the progression of our relationship."

Trip was surprised "Us? But our counterparts got married in their timeline."

"They did, but their relationship prior to the corridor was much more uncertain. The behaviour of T'Pol in that timeline was far more erratic. While a small dose of trellium provides us with the ability to experience emotions, it requires experience to process them. Human children are guided through their emotions as part of their upbringing. By the time they are adults they are able to identify them, process them and continue functioning whilst experiencing them. A Vulcan adult does not have these abilities, which for a human are considered basic skills. It is only since my experiments with trellium, and subsequent discussions with Dr Phlox, that I have come to realise this. It is likely that the behaviour of alternative T'Pol would have been considered immature by human standards. I'm sure her Trip was very confused by her behaviour."

"But there's nothing saying they wouldn't have ended up together if they hadn't been stranded in the past." Trip didn't like to imagine a timeline in which they didn't somehow end up together.

"The stranding of Enterprise in the past, presented Trip and T'Pol with a fait accompli of sorts. They each had limited options for pursuing alternative mates both on and off Enterprise. They were forced to resolve issues in their relationship which may not have happened had Enterprise been able to return to Earth."

Trip thought about the past three months, growing closer to T'Pol and eventually entering a committed relationship. It was hard to conceptualise that all the happiness he had with her rested on the flight of a theoretical, interstellar butterfly. "Well, darlin, I'm glad I found you in that cargo bay and I'm glad I get to love you just the way you are." He said as he pulled her closer and kissed her forehead.

"It is agreeable to me as well t'hyla." She replied. "Sleep now, we will be busy tomorrow."